North-American Influenza - FAO acts over H1N1 human crisis

The FAO-OIE Crisis Management Centre – Animal Health is mobilizing a team of experts to assist government efforts to protect the pig sector from the novel H1N1 virus by confirming there is no direct link to pigs, increasing animal disease surveillance and maintaining response readiness should the new virus become introduced into the pig population.

Thursday 30 April 2009 (10 years 25 days ago)

Like

The FAO-OIE Crisis Management Centre – Animal Health is mobilizing a team of experts to assist government efforts to protect the pig sector from the novel H1N1 virus by confirming there is no direct link to pigs, increasing animal disease surveillance and maintaining response readiness should the new virus become introduced into the pig population.

“There is no evidence of a threat to the food chain; at this stage it is a human crisis and not an animal crisis, but we have to be alerted and prepared,” said FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech.

“The first actions FAO and others must take are to ascertain if the new strain is circulating in pigs, establish if there are any direct linkages between the illness in the human population and animals and explain how this new virus has obtained genetic materials from human, bird and pig influenza strains,” he said.